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Congressional leaders raise plight of US pastors in Chinese prisons

January 15, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Jan 15, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- More than a dozen members of Congress have asked President Trump to press for the release of U.S. pastors imprisoned in China, as the two countries sign phase one of a trade agreement today.

Six senators and seven House members sent a letter to the President on Monday, requesting that he raise the cases of several U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been detained or imprisoned in China, in talks with Chinese leaders.

Among the detained Americans are two Christian pastors who were working in China and neighboring Burma, and who were given prison sentences of seven years and life imprisonment.

The members’ letter was sent to the White House as the U.S. and China are expected to close on the first phase of a trade deal on Wednesday.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), led the letter. Other commissioners signed it, including Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Angus King (I-Maine), Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Representatives Chris Smith (R-N,J,), Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), Brian Mast (R-Fla.), and Ben McAdams (D-Utah).

One of the two imprisoned pastors is John Cao, a legal permanent resident from North Carolina who taught in schools for ethnic minority communities in Burma before his arrest in March of 2018, on his way back into China from Burma.

Cao was sentenced to seven years in prison for allegedly “organizing others to illegally cross the border,” a sentence that was upheld by a Chinese court this summer. The UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has determined that Cao was arbitrarily detained, and has requested his immediate release.

Another pastor, David Lin, was detained by China in 2006 while awaiting approval to build a church. He was convicted on fraud-related charges and sentenced to life in prison, although his sentence was later reduced to a scheduled release in the year 2030.

“We write to express our deep concern about the Chinese government’s imprisonment or arbitrary detention of U.S. citizens and permanent residents in China,” the members wrote President Trump in their Monday letter.

Several other Americans are mentioned in the letter, which also asks Trump to raise the situation of relatives of American citizens or legal permanent residents who are currently detained in Xinjiang. Almost two million ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been incarcerated in mass internment camps in the region, with reports of torture, forced marriage, and organ trafficking.

“These family members, like the Americans mentioned above, need the Administration to be tenacious advocates for them and the estimated 1.8 million ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims arbitrarily detained in the XUAR,” the letter states.

Sen. Rubio told CBS’ Face the Nation on Jan. 5 that, with trade talks taking place between the U.S. and China, “absolutely” there should be sanctions on Chinese leaders for human rights abuses committed including the detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

“I will never accept the notion that somehow in order to be able to sell them [China] more things, we have to look the other way on some of the grotesque human rights violations that we’re seeing systemized on their part, both in the Xianjing province of—throughout China in general, but also in places like Hong Kong as well,” Rubio said.

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Archbishop Lori calls for increase in security funding for religious sites

January 14, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Baltimore, Md., Jan 14, 2020 / 06:48 pm (CNA).- Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore joined two U.S. senators and several religious leaders this week in calling for additional federal funding for security measures at religious sites in the U.S.

U.S. Senators Benjamin Cardin and Christopher Van Hollen, both Democrats from Maryland, joined Lori and a group of other faith leaders at a Jan. 13 press conference outside the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in Pikesville.

The senators have proposed to quadruple the funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in next year’s federal budget. This increase in funding would offer an additional $360 million per year to strengthen security measures for religious and non-profit institutions.

“I commend our Senate leaders for calling us together today to condemn these acts, but also to take concrete and necessary measures to do everything we can to protect the rights of all people,” Lori, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The proposal follows a rise in anti-Semitic violence throughout the country in recent months.

In October 2018, a gunman killed 11 people and injured several others at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. In April 2019, a shooting at Poway Synagogue in Poway, California left one dead and three injured. Last month, three civilians and a police detective were killed in a shooting at a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two weeks later, a stabbing left five people injured during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home in New York.

Catholic leaders have repeatedly denounced the violence and called for respect for people of all faiths.

“We are deeply disturbed by the recent apparent rise in anti-Semitism, in particular, the violent attacks that took place last year during the Hanukkah celebration in New York and on the kosher market in Jersey City,” said Lori at the press conference.

Rabbi Shmuel Silber of Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim Congregation vowed not to give in to fear amid the recent attacks on Jewish communities.

“We are emboldened and we will continue to shepherd our respective communities in our faith traditions and never bow to hate and bigotry,” Silber said, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

At the press conference, Van Hollen cited FBI reports showing that anti-Semitic attacks have increased by 35% from 2014 to 2018. Cardin pointed to steps taken by European governments to protect religious institutions from being vulnerable to terrorism.

Speakers also pointed to recent attacks against mosques and churches, such as the shooting last month that killed two at West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas.

In addition to supporting legislative action, Lori said, “we also continue to put our faith in the simple act of coming together, standing side by side, to demonstrate that love will always be a greater power than evil.”

 

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Disability group welcomes ruling against right to assisted suicide in Mass.

January 14, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Boston, Mass., Jan 14, 2020 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Second Thoughts Massachusetts, a disability rights group, has praised a recent ruling that there is not a right to assisted suicide in the state’s law or its constitution.

In a decision dated Dec. 31, 2019, Justice Mary Ames of the Suffolk Superior Court ruled that physicians who prescribe lethal medication for assisted suicide in Massachusetts can be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter, but that physicians may provide information and advice on assisted suicide to terminally ill, competent adults.

“We are gratified that the court reaffirmed the law against assisted suicide, and referred the matter to the legislature where lawmaking belongs. Disability rights advocates will continue to press the legislature that assisted suicide is just too dangerous,” John Kelly, director of Second Thoughts, commented Jan. 13.

The case on which Ames ruled was brought by Dr. Roger Kligler, who has prostate cancer, and Dr. Alan Steinbach, who treats patients considering end-of-life problems.

Among the arguments Kligler and Steinbach made were that prosecution of a physician for manslaughter who prescribes medication for assisted suicide “impermissibly restricts a patient’s constitutional right to privacy” and their “fundamental liberty interests.”

They also argued that the prosecution of such physicians “violates the constitutional right to the equal protection of law by treating differently terminally ill adults who wish to receive [assisted suicide] and terminally ill adults who wish to hasten death by the voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking (VSED), withdrawal of life support, or palliative sedation.”

Ames wrote in her decision that “any physician is free to provide information on the jurisdictions where [assisted suicide] is legal, guidance and information on the procedures and requirements in those jurisdictions, and referrals to physicians who can provide [assisted suicide] in those jurisdictions. Such conduct, without more, does not constitute involuntary manslaughter.”

She also wrote that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had taken pains “to preserve what it viewed as a meaningful distinction between death that results naturally from the withdrawal of medical equipment and death that results from affirmative human efforts,” and that it had said the law “does not permit suicide” or “unlimited self-determination.”

Ames said that neither of two relevant SJC decisions suggest “that the principles that underlie the right to refuse medical treatment apply to the affirmative act of taking one’s own life with the assistance of a willing physician,” and that the SJC would likely maintain “a strong distinction between [assisted suicide], and the withdrawal of treatment and palliative care.”

Compassion & Choices, an assisted suicide advocacy group, has said they plan to appeal the ruling, WBUR reported Jan 10.

Ames wrote that the state legislature could “conclude that difficulty in determining and ensuring that a patient is ‘mentally competent’ warrants the continued prohibition” of assisted suicide.

She added that the legislature could conclude that “predicting when a patient has six months to live is too difficult and risky for the purposes of” assisted suicide. She noted that the state “put forward expert testimony that while doctors may be able to accurately predict death within two or three weeks of its occurrence, predictions of death beyond that time frame are likely to be inaccurate.”

Moreover, Ames said the legislature could also conclude that “a general medical standard of care is not sufficient to protect those seeking” assisted suicide, noting  that the state provided testimony that assisted suicide “is neither a medical treatment nore a medical procedure and thus there can be no applicable medical standard of care” and that the legalization of assisted suicide “is an attempt to carve out a special case outside of the norms of medical practice.”

The legislature could, too, conclude that assisted suicide “is not equivalent to permissible alternatives,” citing the difference between assisted suicide and voluntary cessation of nutrition and hydration, withdrawal of life support, or palliative sedation.

Ames concluded that “there appears to be a broad consensus that this issue is not best addressed by the judiciary,” and that there are strong arguments for prohibiting assisted suicide or ensuring it “occurs in an environment in which clear, thoughtful, and mandatory standards are in place to protect terminally ill patients who wish to make an irreversible decision. The Legislature, not the Court, is ideally positioned to weigh those arguments and determine whether and if so, under what restrictions, [assisted suicide] should be legally authorized.”

There are bills in both houses of the state legislature to legalize assisted suicide. The bills are due to be considered by the Joint Committee on Public Health next week.

Ruthie Pool, president of MPOWER, a group of people who have experienced mental health diagnosis, trauma, or addiction, commented Jan. 13 that “as someone who has been suicidal in the past, I can relate to the desire for ‘a painless and easy way out.’ However, depression is treatable and reversible. Suicide is not. The current bill in the legislature pretends otherwise.”

In 2012, Massachusetts voters narrowly rejected a ballot initiatve that would have legalized assisted suicide.

At the time, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston commented that “it is my hope and prayer that the defeat of Question 2 will help all people to understand that for our brothers and sisters confronted with terminal illness we can do better than offering them the means to end their lives.”

The 2012 initiative was opposed by both the Massachusetts Medical Association and the Boston Herald.

In the US, assisted suicide is legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia; and in Montana by a court ruling.

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Analysis: After investigation, when will Pope Francis act on Hoeppner?

January 14, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Jan 14, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- Alongside bishops from North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, Bishop Michael Hoeppner met with Pope Francis Tuesday, for a two-hour meeting some bishops called “open,” and “hopeful.”

But Hoeppner is unique among his brother bishops: he is the first U.S. bishop to be investigated under the norms of Vos estis lux mundi, the 2018 policy from Pope Francis on investigating bishops accused of mishandling or obstructing allegations of clerical sexual abuse. In fact, alongside Hoeppner at the Jan. 13 papal meeting was Archbishop Bernard Hebda, the archbishop who conducted the investigation.

But while the Vatican authorized the investigation in September, and a report was sent to Rome in early November, it is unclear when the Vatican will announce the results of the investigation, and the next steps in the scandal-plagued tenure of Bishop Hoeppner.

There are no legal timeframes in which the Vatican is required to respond to Hebda’s report, and no indications of when a response will be issued. But as the question of Hoeppner’s future lingers unanswered, the Diocese of Crookston continues to face serious difficulties.

In November, depositions were released in which Hoeppner is seen to admit that he did not properly address an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest that an alleged victim brought to him in 2011. The depositions also include Hoeppner seeming to admit to mishandling the cases of several priests, including one, presently in active ministry, who admitted to diocesan officials that he had sexually abused a 5-year-old while a teenager.

In more recent weeks, sources in the diocese tell CNA, a dispute over a priest removed from ministry for alleged boundary violations has become something of a flash point in the diocese. Several priests have told CNA that in their view, Hoeppner removed Fr. Bryan Kujawa from ministry unjustly, sending him for psychological testing after the anonymous allegation of a boundary violation with an adult — a charge that Kujawa denies. The priest says he has been given no opportunity to defend himself.

Some sources note that Kujawa has been a “voice of conscience” in the diocese, and speculate that the priest has been unfairly targeted by Hoeppner because he has been outspoken about the revelations contained in the November depositions.

While the Kujawa case has apparently become both demoralizing and contentious among Crookston’s priests, it has also captured the attention of Crookston’s lay Catholics, who have planned prayer vigils outside the cathedral and other demonstrations in support of the priest.

Lay Catholics, in fact, have rented 6 billboards in the Crookston area, by which Catholics are urged to contact Hoeppner and his vicar general “to demand justice for Fr. Bryan Kujawa.”

The population of Crookston is 8,000, and 100,000 people live in the “Greater Grand Forks” area. Six billboards in the area represents a considerable investment. But Catholics, at least some Catholics in the area, are angry. Justly or otherwise, Kujawa’s suspension has become for some a symbol of Hoeppner’s failures.

In short, in the months since Hebda’s report on Crookston was filed, controversy continues to unfold in the diocese, and the information contained in the released depositions represents cause for considerable concern, at least with regard to the norms of Vos estis.

Some Catholics in Crookston tell CNA they are simply demoralized; tired of the cloud of scandal hanging over their diocese.

The question for Crookston Catholics is when Pope Francis or the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops will act on what’s been reported, and what continues to unfold.

The resignation of Bishop Richard Malone from the Diocese of Buffalo was accepted less than a month after his November visit to the pope, and Malone had also been subject to an investigation before that meeting, though not one conducted under the auspices of Vos estis lux mundi.

If Malone’s ouster is a template, Catholics in Crookston might expect to hear whether Hoeppner will remain in office within the next few weeks— after months of waiting, any news will likely come as a relief, even if the outcome is less than what some Catholics – those who have called for Hoeppner’s removal- are hoping for.

But because Hoeppner’s case is the first to be handled completely under the pope’s new norms, how it resolves is likely to be seen as a harbinger of the success or failure of those norms. Some Catholics in Crookston are waiting to see how Pope Francis will respond to leadership they see as compromised, and, while they wait for a report on the misdeeds of Theodore McCarrick, Catholics across the U.S. will also be watching.

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